Friday, November 09, 2018

[195] ‘MTSU On the Record’ previews Nov. 15 on-campus lecture by WWI expert


MURFREESBORO, Tenn. —The influence of World War I on the current-day formation and struggles of Middle Eastern nations will be the topic of the next “MTSU On the Record” radio program.

Host Gina Logue’s interview with Sean Foley, an associate professor of history, will air from 9:30 to 10 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 13, and from 6 to 6:30 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 18, on WMOT-FM Roots Radio 89.5 and www.wmot.org.

Foley, who has traveled and written extensively about the Middle East, will discuss the upcoming appearance by Eugene Rogan, a professor of modern Middle Eastern history at the University of Oxford and director of the Middle East Center at St. Antony’s College at Oxford. 

Rogan, who is this year’s Strickland Visiting Scholar at MTSU, will speak at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 15, in the Tennessee Room of the James Union Building. The subject will be “World War I and the Making of the Modern Middle East.” A searchable campus parking map is available at http://tinyurl.com/MTSUParkingMap.

This year marks the 100thanniversary of the end of the so-called “war to end all wars.” Foley said World War I marked beginning of the world’s dependence on oil after Winston Churchill, as Britain’s First Lord of the Admiralty, ordered all British Navy vessels retrofitted to run on oil instead of coal.

“One of the things that the war does with oil is transform oil into the most important strategic commodity in the world,” Foley said. “And that means, the Middle East, already a crossroads with the Bosporus Straits, as well as with the Suez Canal, takes on even greater strategic importance because everybody is interested in getting a piece of that oil.” 

To hear previous “MTSU On the Record” programs, go to http://bit.ly/mtsu-otr.

For more information about the radio program, contact Logue at 615-898-5081 or WMOT-FM at 615-898-2800. 

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